Once more into the Super Bowl breach

super bowlOne of the biggest shocks in the 8 1/2 year history of the blog is that Super Bowl Sunday is the worst day for visitors every year. It’s worse than Christmas and New Year’s, both of which are actually pretty good days for traffic.

The Wine Curmudgeon does not know why this is, but I do know that it annoys the hell out of me. I am an ex-sportswriter who was so worn out by pro sports that the only thing I still pay attention to is baseball and my Chicago Cubs, and one can argue that the Cubs are not sports or very professional.

So the country’s obsession with the Super Bowl leaves me at a loss. I haven’t watched the game since 1986, which is more or less the last time I got paid to watch it.

Nevertheless, because so many of you do care, I offer you this wine story about the Super Bowl from the New York Times — “Wine Here! A Football Bud Gets Competition,” which includes a cartoon as badly conceived as that headline and this truly dreadful lede: “Beer and football may go together like wine and cheese. But lately more and more people seem be favoring a Bordeaux over a Bud Light.”

Which would have made me rise from the copy desk, pica pole in hand, to chase down the offending reporter (if my pal Johnny D. Boggs hadn’t already forcefully reprimanded the miscreant).

The point of all this is that since the game is being played in suburban San Francisco, which is in wine country, there must be a wine angle to the Super Bowl (even if Bordeaux is a French wine region). To the reporter’s credit, he quotes an expert, some former NFL types, and a wine person or two. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the story any more interesting, and it’s way too long, but if you’re on deadline and the composing room is screaming for the copy, you spell check it, slap a headline on it, and hope for the best.

Right, Johnny?

5 thoughts on “Once more into the Super Bowl breach

  • By Johnny D. Boggs -

    I am laughing so hard, I might miss my magazine deadline for an article due today. But maybe the UPS man will bring me some Paso Robles zin.

  • By Denton Holland -

    Cubs!!!! Here I thought you “curmudgeonly” because of corpvino.

    • By Wine Curmudgeon -

      Yes, Cubs. Because what’s the point of being a Yankees fan and winning every year?

  • By Khris -

    Disappointed (but not surprised) that the article made no mention of the wines made by Drew Bledsoe (whose untimely injury paved the way for the Super Bowl-winningest QB of this generation) and Dan Marino (the greatest QB to never win a Super Bowl) in Washington state. I haven’t had the pleasure of trying either yet but they each seem to get very favorable reviews.

    Another bone I have to pick with the article is the constant inference that it’s primarily a woman’s drink, and the main reason wine sales improve before the Super Bowl is because more women are watching.

    • By Wine Curmudgeon -

      Because you have someone who doesn’t know all that much about wine writing about wine.

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